Covid-19 Cooking: South Korean Dalgona Iced Coffee

On the thirty-eighth day of the Lockdown in France (Confinement Jour 38), I am blogging about my version of Dalgona Iced Coffee. In South Korea, where not only was the coronavirus met with an admirably disciplined approach, taming the spread early on, but during lockdown with its accompanying sans-Starbucks lifestyle, the country also did some viral activity of its own by popularising via social media the DIY making of Dalgona Iced Coffee. Dalgona's name is taken from the popular South Korean street snack of honeycomb toffee because according to the South Korean actor, Jung Il-woo, after having a beaten coffee (coffee powder, sugar, and hot water are whipped together) in Macau, stated they share a similar taste. Both also have a light-caramel colour. Beaten and frappe coffees (originating in Greece though frappe is a french term for mixing with ice) ordinarily could be gotten at eateries before the pandemic.

If you have come across images of this delightful iced coffee, and they are all over social media, you might be asking, but where is that scumptious, glistening mound of coffee foam reaching skywards? It's in there I promise as I first filled the glass with one-third of iced milk, then layered in the foam, and finally followed with the second and final one-third of iced milk. I did this for two reasons. One to be different though soon afterwards, I discovered India had already beaten me to the punch with its phenti hui coffee. Second to get a head start on the pesky business of mixing the whipped content with the milk so it can be quaffed down with ease. The coffee foam though delicious has attitude, an attitude derived from its nature of being foam which is viscous; its similiarity to Italian meringue has been noted by many a culinary eagel's eye. Despite being suspended in milk, it managed to surface, a tip of the 'foamberg'. My version also has the addition of folding in grated dark chocolate into the foam. And sometimes I rim the glass with ground cinnamon. The coffee foam is so enveloping, the chocolate bits disappeared into its welcoming opaque cocoon. But they soon melted leaving visual traces of their delectable existence in streaks, flushes, and scalloped edges.

Ingredients
makes two 237 ml/8 fluid oz servings which can be had on consecutive days as the Dalgona topping keeps several days in the fridge. The quantity can be ramped up as long as the ingredients are all in equal proportions. Ramping down is not feasible because the quantity would be too small to be successfully whipped.

• Coffee, instant or freeze-dried, 2 T
• Sugar, white, 2 T
• Boiling water, 2 T
• Dark chocolate, grated, 1 heaping tsp
• Milk, any kind, including nut and grain (I used whole cow's milk), 237 ml/8 fluid oz
• Ice cubes, 6, crushed (since the coffee foam can be added to hot milk instead, if that is your preference then no ice cubes are needed)
• If rimming the glass in cinnamon, then a mixture of cinnamon and sugar plus some kind of sticky liquid like honey/syrup/cordial are required

Place the first three ingredients in a small mixing bowl. Though an electric beater/whisk would be the easiest and quickest way to make the coffee foam, in true DIY manner, manual beater/whisk, even a fork, could be used. Be warned, it will take some time, at least five minutes, probably more. My stick blender did it under a minute. As the mixture is beaten, it eventually lightens in colour and forms peaks which means it's ready. Fold the grated chocolate into the foam. Combine crushed ice and milk in a pitcher. If rimming the glass, dip the rim first into honey/maple or plain sugar syrup/flavoured cordial followed with a dipping in a sugar and cinnamon mixture. Use a stamping motion which can be followed by a twisting one. Do the stamping and twisting motion just once or big, unattractive globs will accumulate negating the desired crushed jewels effect. Fill glass one third full of iced milk. Spoon half of the coffee foam on top, and cover almost to the rim with ice milk. Repeat for a second glass. Even after pronounced stirring, clumps of foam still bobbed about but were small enough to be enjoyed while sipping. This was sooooooo good and fun to do!

À la prochaine!

RELATED POST

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Winter Garden Flowers & Café Au Lait

Our urban garden with its golden bed of wind-swept daffodils was strongly blurred behind fogged, rain-splattered kitchen windows this stormy morn.

It's fairly gloomy and has been for months. To cheer myself up I went into my office and peeked out of that window since it's partially protected from rain by a shutter positioned in awning mode, and lo and behold, daffodils in all their bright splendour!

I then realised Eli the Cat was out and about. When I went to fetch him I took my camera because the other day I had noted the luscious burgundy staining the potted sedum's outer leaves . . .

. . .  not to mention their yellow blooms. Its companion, late-summer-blooming pink heather has long since faded to white, but its dark green, needlelike leaves adds a nice contrast to the front garden display.

Upon our return, before I warmed up and cosily steamed up the kitchen at the same time by making café au lait, I towelled off the very wet Eli the Cat, including his paws. Drying him off is not only good for keeping Eli in good nick and not having mud tracked throughout, but also cats get upset when they smell their own fur, which they do when wetly odoriferous, because if they can, other animals not as friendly as moi can too. 

(Ingredients are in bold.) Café au lait is a lovely, lovely, lovely hot drink with a smooth but slightly airy texture. Though fairly simple needing no special machine, it's not just a coffee diluted with lots of milk as its strong taste is still present, but a bit more mellow. It's made by pouring separately and simultaneously one thirds hot, strong coffee, that is, a lot of coffee in proportion to water (I used three heaping teaspoons of freeze-dried coffee for 118 ml/4 oz hot water) and two thirds hot, whole milk (237 ml/8 oz) into a bowl specially made for cupping both hands around the warming surface while they are supported by a sturdy foot. In this sensual manner, the bracing and nourishing beverage is slowly sipped. A spare café au lait bowl can be used to measure roughly separate amounts of coffee and milk before heating them either on a stove or in the microwave in their own pots/containers. The higher the milk and coffee is poured, the more creamy it will be. The Calm One assisted by doing the pouring which was made easier by having the liquids in small pitchers. Alternatively the coffee and milk could be heated together, shaken in a lidded jar for about a minute, and poured into the bowl. It still won't be as foamy as a latte, because after all it is a café au lait.

Often presented as a morning meal, a bowl of café au lait is served with tartines which are slices of bread, either toasted or not, and spread with good things, like butter and jam or if something fancier is desired, with viennoiseries rich in butter, sugar, eggs, like chausson au pommes (literal translation: apple slippers, that is, apple turnovers), pain au chocolate, pain aux raisins, croissant aux amandes, and brioche. Young children usually have bowls of hot chocolate instead of coffee. In my case, I grated some dark chocolate over mine. Freshly grated nutmeg or a mint sprig would be nice touches instead. If I remembered to take out from the freezer the remaining blueberry muffin made with our own berries from last season, I would have toasted and buttered it. I promise you and me in the very near future this will be the case.

À la prochaine!

Fresh Fig & Raspberry Maple Spiced Smoothie

The raspberry patch and the fig tree still are going great guns. Smoothies make a gorgeous, high-energy late afternoon snack. If one were going to eat all that fruit it would take a lot more time than quaffing them down!

For one large serving or two smaller ones, put five, washed, ripe, halved figs along with a large handful of rinsed raspberries plus generous pinches of ground cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in the mixing container that comes with a handheld blender. Cover with milk. Add maple syrup to taste. The amount of sweetener will vary per the sugar content of the fruit.  Blend till smooth.

The addition of raspberries always gives a nice blush to smoothies. Autumn was very much in the air while these were sipped on the balcony overlooking the front garden. Therefore the slight heat given by the sweet spices was welcomed.

À la prochaine!

Peach Raspberry Banana Ginger Smoothie

In late summer, when so many tempting fruits can be found in gardens and green markets, a nutritious, versatile, cooling smoothie is the way to go. It can be served as breakfast, lunch, supper, or a snack. Since I remember how ginger ale offered superb refreshment during my childhood summers, ginger often is added to our summer beverages. Lovely, luscious peaches and raspberries from the potager plus a banana, orange juice, and milk are the other ingredients. Ice is often added to smoothies, but since everything except the powdered ginger has been kept in the fridge, it comes out well-chilled on its own.

For 1 large serving or two smaller ones, using either a blender or stick mixer, blend together until smooth a large peach, rinsed, pitted, and cut small, a small handful of rinsed raspberries, peeled, medium cut-up banana, 1/8 to 1/4 tsp of powdered ginger, enough milk to cover, a good slosh of orange juice, and sugar to taste.

Delicious and packed with potassium which is essential for muscle strength, this smoothie is all I need to head back to the garden for digging some more beds so cover crops which function as green fertiliser will continue to be planted throughout this month and next. How many beds? Six!

À la prochaine!

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Niçoise Inspired Couscous Salad & Ginger Strawberry Slushie

The garden is turning out tons of succulent green beans. Since there's canned tuna, olive oil, and capers in the larder; eggs, leftover couscous, and a half of lemon in the fridge; those ridiculously abundant green beans plus fennel the herb in the garden, I say a refreshing salade composée is in order. The French in general don't do mixed/chef salads, instead they refer to any fresh greens as les salades and will often serve just raw leafy vegetables following the main course for cleansing the palate. Salade Niçoise which originated in the French city of Nice varies from household to household and restaurant to restaurant and can either be a composed or tossed salad. Ingredients often include green beans, tuna, and hardboiled eggs, hence the inspiration for my couscous salad. Other additions can be potatoes, anchovies, olives, bell peppers, les salades, and tomatoes. What's there to drink? As a majority of our garden strawberries were macerated in sugar till a ravishing ruby-coloured syrup formed and then popped in the freezer, a Ginger Strawberry Slushie is a perfect accompaniment to the brilliantly green beans.

To compose this salad, spread evenly the couscous on a plate. Mound the flaked tuna in the centre. Then do the green bean cross, that is, two lines of the beans at right angles to each other. Put four halves of hardboiled eggs in the spaces between the beans. Sprinkle on the minced fennel, capers, and olive oil. Season with freshly ground black pepper and fleur de sel. Garnish with fennel sprigs. Top with a twisted thin lemon slice. Serve the remaining lemon with the salad so it can be added just before eating because acid turns the beans to an unattractive grey.

The eggs were boiled for eight minutes, so less than the usual ten. They were nicely gooey.

For about a litre of slushie, smash with a meat mallet two cups of frozen, sugared strawberries put in a ziplock bag. Place the contents along with a large pinch of powdered ginger in a stick blender's container with some cold water and additional sugar if preferred. Blend. For each serving pour in a good slosh of cream. A lovely beverage indeed because it keeps cold as the frozen strawberry bits melt slowly. Its starting out first thick and quite frosty and then gradually becoming thinner while staying pleasantly cool provides an interesting textural experience. And the heavy cream laces its smoothing richness throughout.

À la prochaine!

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Hot Caramel Apple Juice

Winter will be over officially this coming March 20, so there is still plenty of time to bake bread and make delightful hot beverages. Coming in after doing gardening on a day with brisk winds and a chill in the air, I warm up with some Hot Caramel Apple Juice. Topped with whipped cream/salted caramel sauce and flavoured with vanilla, it's a fragrant joy to sip.

Ingredients are in bold: using the mug from which you are going to drink as a measuring cup, fill it up an inch (2.5 cm) from the top with apple juice. For each serving, put a tablespoon of cream and a teaspoon of sugar, brown or white in a saucepan. Over a medium-low flame, dissolve the sugar in the cream while stirring.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla and the apple juice. Bring to the desired temperature. Meanwhile whip up some cream.

Pour into a mug, top with whipped cream, and drizzle the salted caramel sauce (store bought or homemade). If the day is particularly cold and windy and you are a bit frazzled, feel free to add more whipped cream and caramel sauce when they eventually melt into the drink. I did.

À la prochaine!

The Cool Banana: Nog, Smoothie & Agua Fresca

See those almost too-ripe-to-eat, brown-spotted bananas in your fruit bowl? Pop them in the fridge so they can get very cold. With a stick mixer and additions of different proportions of milk, crème fraîche, and water, three different summer beverages are yours for the taking. Ice cubes and a dusting of cinnamon come in handy too.

Let's commence with the one with the thickest consistency which is the banana-nog. For two small servings, and this could be presented for dessert, break off chunks of one medium, peeled, exceedingly almost embarrassingly ripe (remove any fibrous strings) banana that is well-chilled into the stick mixer's cylindrical jar.

Cover half-way with cold milk and add a large dollop of crème fraîche  (sour cream could be substituted).

Blend until smooth. Our 750 watt jobbie did it in about twenty seconds.

I deliberately included a few chunks that was discoloured to give it a slight fermented edge to simulate alcohol so the nog looked more on the amber side then the yellow. Just imagine that's really added whiskey that was aged in ex-sherry casks. The banana seeds look like nutmeg! A little mound of crème fraîche could be put on top.

For two  medium-sized glasses of smoothies, add enough cold milk just to cover the banana chunks. Blend till velvety.

 Top with banana slices and cinnamon.

To make two largish glasses of aqua fresca, cover the banana chunks with an inch (2.5 cm) of milk and then add another inch (2.5 cm) of  water. Get those ice cubes clinking by adding quite a few.

Tumbling the ice cubes into the glasses causes a creamy head to form which is delightful.

Though sugar, honey, or maple syrup could be added, they were all fine without added sweetening. Remember, the bananas are RIPE, much more than bananas that are eaten out of hand. I love all three, but the agua fresca is my fave.

À la prochaine!

Heat Wave Smoothie!

Temperatures are staying high, around 40 degrees C/100 degrees F. Thank goodness for thick stone walls, terracotta roofing tiles, and window shutters. Daily watering is required so the potager behind the house gets drenched in the mornings and the front/side gardens are soaked in the evening. Hand watering is opted instead of sprinklers because there is less wastage plus I can determine which plant needs how much. Calla lilies and fruiting stock receive a lot. Lavender and Rose of Sharon are drought-resistant so not a drop for them.

Iris foliage, potato, and tomato beds

Blackberries are ripening. Enough were harvested to make a smoothie!

Making a bee-line for the cool sous-sol, I passed one of the ivy-covered pillars supporting the pergola and noted this golden leaf amidst the green. Though lovely, it could be a sign of heat stress.

Like many in our quartier, I remain in the house during the rise of sweltering heat as the day unfolds. It's a good 10 degrees cooler there, and in the sous-sol, even more. But still, much better not to turn on the oven or use the stove if possible. Using a stick-mixer, I blended the blackberries picked earlier along with almond meal, a very ripe banana, lemon juice, yogurt, and some ice-cold water. The mixture was sieved and then quaffed down.

In the late evening, I ventured out to water the front and side gardens. Besides hauling hoses and watering cans, I needed to take care of a trembling house sparrow fledgling that was on the hot concrete path underneath the eaves where many nests are tucked away. Sliding a paper towel under the fluffy one, I took it to a shady spot to check for injuries (since birds have no sense of smell, the parents will never know that I touched their offspring). As far as I could make out, its wings could spread out to flutter, and its feet were in working order. The trembling had stopped. It was then carried over to some bushes near its suspected nest and placed under them. Hopefully everything worked out for that avian family. House sparrows have around four clutches in succession during the season which keeps the Mom occupied at home. Hence it usually is the Dad who brings food to the little ones on the ground while they strengthen their wings by flapping them and hopping about. And the heat is a stressor for them so keep those bird baths full, clean, and cool (freeze water in a bowl, place in bath, and as the ice melts, it refills and freshens).

Rock, lavender, Shasta daisies, abelia, and purple plum tree

A pot of dahlias is starting to put out blooms. Several months ago, once the weather was warm enough, two tubers were place in a medium-sized pot filled halfway with loosely packed potting mix which was kept slightly moist since they easily rot. As stems shot up, more mix was added.

Where there are flowers, there are pollinators.

The garden on the west side of the house, and where the baby sparrow was put, boasts of a nice clump of daylilies.

They put out many stems with a lot of buds. Each flower lasts just a day, hence their name.

One more bloom to go!

The Desperado variety wows. I love the delicate, maroon edging.

À la prochaine!

Fresh Berryade

Each summer I reserve enough blueberries harvested from our potager to make blueberry cupcakes, and each summer I actually make something else with those precious berries. Something cool. Something that doesn't require any more baking than the self-roasting I have achieved by picking them in the hot sun. Something which highlights their sparkle and tart sweetness.

Thirty-year-old pitcher with FRESH juice

INGREDIENTS
per sweetness and consistency desired, makes a pint to a quart

• 3 cups of berries (several large handfuls)
• simple sugar syrup made from 1 cup sugar/1 cup water (mix in pot, simmer until mixture is clear, about five minutes)
• berries for garnishing
• additional water for desired dilution

A few raspberries and strawberries along with a handful of blackberries were added to the abundant blueberries.

All from our potager

Eschewing various aides of the electric persuasion, I just put the sieve of washed and trimmed berries over a mixing bowl. My fingers did the rest. You be surprised how much fun it is to squash them, especially the blueberries, almost equal to the pleasure of popping bubblewrap. Those grape-stompers have nothing on me.

This gorgeous pulpy mass will find a loving home on the compost pile

A fork and a wooden spoon was used at the end to finish mashing and to press juice through the sieve. Make sure to use a clean spoon for scraping the outside of the strainer.

Burgundy bliss!

With a small amount of syrup and water added, the 'ade was closer to juice. With more syrup and water, it became cloudy, somewhat dulling the fresh edge, but still so much better than any packaged/bottled versions. If the syrup, berries, and water are cold, then one can enjoy it right away. If not, refrigerate or add ice.

The pink froth tickled in a welcoming way

In the potager, various plantings done in March and April are either close to harvest like onions and potatoes or are being harvested as in the case of shallots. They are a valued ingredient for bringing a delicate piquantness to dishes. For my first crop, I had chosen a rose-coloured variety. It seems that the grise (gray) shallot is more esteemed so I will try those next season.

Jermor variety curing in the shade

Basil, like all annual herbs, need to be pinched back frequently to keep the plants nice and bushy. When I have some in hand, I sneak them in wherever I can, for example, by tucking a few leaves in grilled cheese sandwiches.

Next time, I will add minced shallots

During a late-evening perusal of the garden, I was delighted to see flowering fennel transforming itself into the likeness of a delicate Asian print.

Living artwork flanking one side of our house

In the flower garden, a trio of lavender, perennial snapdragons, and roses form a calming melange.

In the front garden, hydrangeas add a bright accent to foliage, rocks, and brick path.

À la prochaine!